


The World Is Her Oyster

by magicites



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Cute girls being Cute, F/F, First Meetings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-01
Updated: 2012-04-01
Packaged: 2017-11-02 20:47:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/373173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicites/pseuds/magicites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aradia had always thought seadwellers were all nasty, ruthless, terrible monsters who abused their place on the hemospectrum. After an encounter with the Heiress herself, she realizes that maybe not all seadwellers are bad after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The World Is Her Oyster

**Author's Note:**

> So my friend Kit and I were discussing AraFef headcanons a while back, and somehow this turned into us needing to make more AraFef things. Both she and our other friend Yigga decided to draw some AraFef, while I wrote some. :) When they finish their works, I'll make sure to link it here! For now, enjoy this unedited thing.

Your name is Aradia Megido, and this is the closet you’ve ever been to the ocean. You can see it from inside the cave you just finished exploring, a mass of sparkling blue that stretches on for forever. A part of you wants to get closer to examine it, and maybe even touch the water, just to see what it’s like, but you know that seadwellers are highly protective of their waters. They’d cull you the moment they saw you. Even staying in this cave is dangerous.

You frown, and retreat a little deeper into the cave, just past the mouth. You make sure to stay right by a giant rock, in case you need to hide for any reason. Behind it are the worthless shiny trinkets and baubles you excavated, but you can just hop into the large pile if you need to. You have no idea what you’ll do with these. Maybe give them to Tavros; he could use them for Fiduspawn or something.

The waves crest onto the shore and drag the sand away, a constant tug of war with the land and sea. Thing is, the sea always wins. Nothing could ever dare to beat it, or the trolls that live within. They’re powerful, murderous, and ruthless. They’re no good. Just privileged jerks who lord the color of their blood over everyone else in the hemospectrum.

You notice a series of bubbles rise up over the tide a little ways away from the shore, but you choose to ignore it. It’s probably just some animal dying, no big deal. You look over your shoulder to scan the cave one last time when you hear a loud gasp come from behind you. Immediately you pull out your trusty whip (a near-exact replica of your idol, Troll Indiana Jones’s, weapon), and tense up, bracing yourself for an attack.

Instead, you see a tiny arm shoot out of the water, as if desperately reaching out for something to hold onto. A head follows, but all you see is a mass of wet hair and a pair of thin horns that curve inwards. A strangled gasp pierces the air, quickly transforming into a breathless, high-pitched shriek. The voice sounds like a young troll girl, probably no older than you.

Your heart clenches up in sympathy, but you make no move to help her. She’s probably just some lowblood who got too close to the water, and ended up getting dragged in by the seadwellers. It’s horrible to have her die, but why try to save her when you know it’d only end in both of your deaths?

The whispers of the dead, ever-present in the back of your mind, grow loud enough for you to distinguish their words. You hear several of them breathe the word empress, and your lips curl in distaste. You know of the Condesce; you’ve read stories telling of her tyranny. The young heiress couldn’t possibly be any better. You wouldn’t be surprised if she’s the one leading the attack on the poor troll.

The head goes under, but another hand goes up, and you watch as the troll flails over to the shore. The tide pushes her in, and she digs her claws into the sand to keep from being dragged away. When you see no seadwellers rise after her, you finally leave the cave and rush to her side. You loop your arms around her middle, and drag her up out of the reach of the tide. “Shoosh,” you whisper as you lay her down, “it’s alright. I’ll help you.”

Her hair is everywhere, a mass of black kelp going down to her hips and covering most of her body. You can’t see the symbol on her shirt, but you don’t miss the colorful skirt sticking to her legs.

You don’t miss the webbing between her toes as she pushes her feet into the sand, still writhing and struggling, gasping for breath.

She’s a seadweller.

And as her hair moves away from her chest, you see the symbol of her shirt, in a color that belongs to only one troll.

She’s the Empress-to-be. Your future ruler.

But she looks the same age as you. She couldn’t have pupated more than two sweeps ago, you’re sure of it.

Right now, screw the hemospectrum. She’s not hurting anyone; she’s the one hurt. She just needs your help.

“What’s the matter?” You ask, gently pushing her hair away from her face. Her fins twitch and spasm in panic.

Her hands reach up to her throat, but get tangled in her hair. “Gills!” She shrieks, still writhing in the sand. She’s too panicked to think rationally, to try to breathe using her lungs and not just her gills. She’s going to hurt herself if she keeps this up.

You move the rest of her hair away from her neck, letting it fan out in a large half-circle above her head. Finally, you see it. Several plastic rings, the kind that hold together bottles of soda, messily entwined in her gills. You shred it to pieces with your claws, and gently remove the remains from her neck. Once they’re all gone, you toss them into a small pile a little higher up on the shore, far enough away so they can never return to the sea.

“You’ll be alright,” you tell her. “They’re all gone. You can breathe now.” Your words don’t seem to register in her head, and the voices within yours grow louder, almost angry. They urge you to calm her down, but that’s an action far too pale for your liking. You’re not going to shoosh and pap the heiress herself; you know she’d cull you for not giving her the respect she thinks her blood entitles her to.

“Here, just feel for yourself.” You take her hand in yours and guide it up to her neck, brushing her fingers over the slits. She stops struggling, and looks up at you through her goggles in wide-eyed wonder, chest rising and falling at a normal pace.

“You…saved me?” She whispers. You nod, and she slowly sits up, one hand propping her up, the other still running over her gills. “You did! You saved my life!” She squeals in delight, and gives you the biggest grin you’ve ever seen.

Her teeth are so sharp, so unlike yours. They’re just rows of daggers waiting to tear you apart.

But they don’t.

Instead, she propels herself at you, crushing you into the sand. She wraps her arms around you and nuzzles your cheek, making small glubbing noises in the back of her throat. You lay there, too shocked to react. Is this…even allowed? Are you supposed to hug her back? What do you do?

“My hero!” She giggles, hugging you tighter. “My hero, my hero, my hero,” she sings, her voice light and bubbly.

“You’re welcome, Heiress,” you respond quietly, trying not to let your shock and nervousness show.

“Hehe, just call me Feferi!” She finally releases you, and sits cross-legged in the sand, watching you eagerly. “What’s your name?” She asks. “Water you doing out here? Do you live nearby? Were you angling for treasure?” She shoots at least a dozen more questions at you, and your head spins, trying to register them all.

When she finally stops talking, all you can say is, “my name is Aradia,” in a dazed voice.

“Hi Aradia!” She says happily, grabbing your hand and pulling you up to match her. “I didn’t mean to ask so many questions! I just got reely excited!” She practically shouts the last word. “But what were you doing out here?”

You blink. Even though she’s a seadweller (and the heiress at that!), she doesn’t seem upset for you being here. Her question is innocent and curious, and you’re slightly surprised at yourself for wanting to tell her.

“I was exploring that cave,” you explain, pointing back to the small alcove. Feferi stares at the dark mouth, then glances back at you before hopping off and dashing inside. You scramble after her, desperate to keep close for a reason you’re not entirely sure of.

She stops a little ways in, eyes darting all over the bare walls. “Looks kind of boring, if you ask me,” she says, glancing over her shoulder to look at you. “There’s nothing in here.”

You feel yourself fighting to keep a smirk down. Your efforts are in vain, and your lips twitch up as you pass by her, back to your hiding place. “Then what about this?” You ask, pulling out one of the shiny trinkets: a thick, golden armlet. It feels heavy in your hand.

Feferi’s jaw drops, and she’s on you in an instant, snatching the thing out of your hands to look at it. She twists it around and around, holding it above her head in order to get the few rays of light to glint off of it. It almost glows in the dark. “Wow! This is so neat! It’s so pretty!”

“I think it’s pretty stupid.”

She gasps. “Well I think your face is stupid!” She shoots back, huffing and putting her hands on her hips. “This is the coolest!”

A laugh worms its way up and out of your throat, and before you know what’s going on, you’re laughing so hard your shoulders are shaking. “Fine, fine!” You say in-between giggles. “There’s more here, you can take them all. I really don’t want them.”

She walks to your side, and when she sees all of the jewelry, she lights up, exploding into a ray of pure moonshine. You’ve never seen someone look so happy.

“I can have all of this?” She asks breathlessly, pointing to the small pile. You nod, and she practically dives into it, scrambling to fit all of it on her. She covers her body in them, a mish-mash of gray and gold.

At the bottom of the pile is a simple circlet made of flat gold that swells up and down, like the crest of a wave. There’s a small gap in the very center, waiting for some small symbol to fill it and make it complete. Feferi picks it up, delicately handing it like it will break at any moment.

You gently take it from her hands, and place it on her head, pulling out strands of her hair to go over it. She’s complete with it on, looking like true royalty. It’s as if it belonged there all along.

And yet, you feel like you’re her equal. You don’t want to bow down to her, and you know she wouldn’t make you. Maybe seadwellers aren’t as bad as you thought they were. She certainly isn’t.

Feferi traces the circlet, fingers gliding over the smooth metal. She smiles softly, and you see the faintest dusting of tyrian on her cheeks. She looks slightly nervous, but before you can wonder what the matter is, you feel a sudden pounding in your head. The voices rise up in anger, and their whispers become angry shouts, telling Feferi to leave. You stagger back, and somehow you end up on the rocky ground.

“Aradia!” She gasps, just barely audible over the pounding of your head. It feels like it’s being ripped apart in half. You try looking up at her, but you can’t focus enough, and everything is just a mass of brown.

Your head is splitting apart. You can feel it tear down the middle in a messy rip, and it takes all of your willpower not to decapitate yourself just to stop the pain. Your senses are dulled, and even the voices are completely gone, drowned out by agony.

When the world finally clears and the pain starts to subside, you see Feferi crouching down near you. Her hands are cold and wet on your face, and as she pulls them away, you see them covered in maroon. You’re not sure if its blood, tears, or a mixture of both.

“I have to go feed her. She’s getting upset.” Feferi says solemnly. You have no idea what she’s talking about, but you nod weakly, unable to do much of anything else.

“I promise I’ll be back! Wait for me, okay?” She asks, already at the mouth of the cave. “I’d reely want to sea you again, Aradia!”

“Yeah…me too,” you mutter. She disappears out of the cave, and you rest your head against the floor of the cave and close your eyes, listening to the crunch of the sand under her feet. It quickens and gets louder, and you look up.

She’s back in the cave, looking like she’s ready to run away at any moment. She dances from foot to foot, but her lips pull back in a tight line, and she determinedly marches over to you. She leans down, and you watch curiously as hesitation flickers over her face, making a deep blush rise on her face. Even her fins tint tyrian.

In a flash, she leans down and presses her lips to yours, sweet and gentle and chaste. There is a single moment where you watch her freeze up in fear, blushing so hard it looks like she’ll burst.

You smile up at her, and she giggles, nervous and relieved and extremely excited. She gives you one final peck and runs out of the cave, giggling and glubbing to herself.

In just a few moments, the crunching of the sand turns to the splashing of the waves, and her voice is gone, leaving you all alone.

You gingerly touch your lips, still feeling the her ghostly imprint. They feel cool to the touch.

The next day, you find yourself skipping a FLARP campaign just to return to the beach where you met Feferi. You find her sitting at the shore, drawing small pictures in the sand with her toes. She’s still wearing the jewelry you gave her.

She looks back and waves you over, giggling and smiling the entire time. You smile back, and sit down next to her.

The circlet you gave her has a new addition to it: a small metal plate in the very center, the same color of her blood, with her symbol delicately carved into it.

It looks nice on her.

You tell her that, and she glubs and blushes, thanking you profusely. Afterwards, you lead her on an expedition deeper into land. She asks you questions the entire time about every little thing she sees, and you’re glad to explain.

The land has become her oyster, not just the sea, and you’re proud to show her every little part of it.


End file.
